Teaming Up with Your Library - Success Stories and Ideas

Please share any success stories or ideas that your library has done.  Include how your library has teamed up with your community!  Movie or build a park?

Wrapping it up!

This week, we are to respond to what we've learned and how we are going to use this information in the future.  E-mail works the best where I receive the e-newsletter and updates on trainings. It was great to have the opportunity to visit all the databases with a more in-depth look.  Some databases I'm pretty familiar with but others like Mango and Chilton - I have not taken a look at before.  Students grades K-6 visit the library and take library skills classes. During the month of January, students visit these databases and do a scavenger hunt, then report on two of the most interested websites.  Still this only skims the surface.  I also have had the State Library Staff visit our school and show our entire staff these resources; I have gone to classroom to teach high school history students how to use some of the databases to research and cite resources for projects/assignments; and continue to email staff and public patrons of the access to these great resources.  I plan to write up an article for our local paper on these resources available to everyone. Thanks to the State Library Staff for this opportunity and continued guidance to have resources where little libraries like ourselves could not afford access to these databases.  I look forward to the other trainings that are found via Internet when I don't have the time or funds to travel to workshops and trainings; this was great as it went at the professional's pace. Thanks again!

Ancestry Library/Heritage Quest/Sanborn Maps

Our task this week is to look up info on Ancestry Library.  First I need to find my name, there was 220 results. There was only one that was me on the first page.  Second, we are to find a grandparent.  I did find some info that did match and the it was neat to see his name on the census with his signature.  The third task, we are to look in pictures and South Dakota - the results is many, many, yearbooks. I placed my name and 305 results were found, but none were accurate because I lived my first 30 plus years in another state.

Heritage Quest - I looked on Persi archives South Carolina, Civil War and Cemeteries and 43 items were found.

Sandborn Maps is a really fun historical site that you can find maps about towns like Sturgis in the past on Oct. 1885.  Its interesting to see how towns have grown and developed.  This site shows a birds eye-view of towns and the streets; then how the town develops over the years.

Camio

Camio is a great site for finding and research the arts from costumes, clothing to art paintings.  I showed this site to some of our high school students who are taking art class.  A response that I heard was "this is cool!" and "Thanks, for showing this to me".  Just go to the State Library website and take a look at all the databases.

World CAT

We use World CAT many times to help patrons find information or resources.  If I can't find a specific resources on my shelf, I resort to this site.  It's advanced and the site show many resources in different formats.  Our task this week is to find - Snowmobile Racing  in advanced search then phrase search which was more specific. Phrases such as snowmobiling fatality report or many articles on the racing event in the Black Hills.  I choose to look at the fatality one first - the resource is from Wisconsin and the info is not as a current as I hoped to find.  The next resource I chose was the snowmobiling event in the Black Hills.  I found out that a Bombardier is a manufacturer of Ski-Doo Snowmobiles.  The author is Jerry Sanders and there is only one library that has this resource and only one resource listed and is from the State Library.

Within World Cat is a drop down box to find other databases within this database.  I looked up on a database called OAIster info on Motorcycle Racing.  There were 259 resources found.

Ebsco Host - Net Library E-books

1. The first task is to find something of interest found on Ebsco Host(formerly net library e-books. Our book fair is going to be in March and the theme is Fiesta so I'm looking for references and ideas. One of the resources that I chose was titled Mexico by Shirley M. Gray.  This book has colored pictures and info about the Spanish-Mexican Culture.  I was really surprised about the colored picture and was not anticipating that these e-books would have them.  There is a map on Mexico that easily read on page 5 of the book. A picture of the traffic in Mexico City and info of the rural life in Mexico.  This book was very informative.

2. Finding info for Constitution Day outcome was 21 resources to choose from.  I would ask the patron to be more specific, like which title would work for the research needed.  Some of the titles that were shown: AP US History, The Criminal Law Handbook, The Complete Idiot's Guide to the American Presidents and Econo Guide '00 London.  This topic is too broad.

3. The next task was to find info on Western History in the Advanced Search.  We were to select PB publisher in the drop down box by the select a field option and type one of the states.  I choose Nebraska and found 56 results. Turtle Lung's Granddaughter was the first title listed.  What I found was that all these books was published by the University of Nebraska.  Again, this is a great place to share with everyone taking history class. 

I intend on writing an article for our local paper about these great websites and offer a class for patrons to visit the library and take a look at these unique data bases that were are researching for this class.  This will be accomplished when I finish this class.

Gale Virtual Reference

This week, we are to explore Gale Virtual Reference Library. This resource offers e-books. I clicked on Title List and found a list of books of nonfiction info. Crime and Punishment in American Reference Library. The copy write is 2005 and info that includes past information on colonial period and current info such as cyber crimes. This info could be used in a classroom to discuss how cyber bullying crime and its effects on society. I can share this information with our history teacher. Students can expand their ideas on why/effects and have a discussion. I have in the past, gone in the history room and showed the students how to use sites/databases such as Gale Virtual Reference to find info for their research. The next research question is find info on something specific, I look up zinc and found 820 ebooks. The most difficult task is to narrow your topic. Next, I searched - "zinc in food" and found eight resources. Then I used the listen feature which is unique for anyone needing extra help in pronouncing the words and reading the information. Some of the information in these references in at a higher level which means much of the vocabulary will be at a higher level as well. This listening feature also highlights the text as it reads to you, so you can follow along. I responded to Mrs. Kafka's blog on oysters being a great source for zinc. I looked at Mike from Deadwood's blog and the information that was researched - news from the Middle East. No one else has finished this week's question. I have to stay ahead of the game because I'm busy refereeing games.